We don’t need another market garden

There is a lot of buzz about a possible American operation to seize Iranian enriched uranium and remove it from the country. Mark Levin, among others, apparently thinks this is a swell idea. I have just two words for those who are proposing this.

Market Garden

That was the code name of an Allied military operation during the Second World War. Three airborne divisions were dropped behind German lines to seize nine bridges over which the British XXX Corps would then punch through into the German rear and into northern Germany. The British 1st Airborne was dropped at Arnhem, a full 64 miles behind German lines. The XXX Corps was expected to make it to Arnhem in 2-3 days.

XXX Corps never made it. The British 1st Airborne was ultimately withdrawn. By that time, out of an initial complement of 10,000 men, the division had lost 8,000 dead, missing, and captured.

We launched this war against Iran a little over a month ago based on intelligence from the Israelis that led us to believe that the Iranian regime would collapse, that there would be a popular uprising, and that in one dramatic swoop, we would end the threat from the Islamic Republic. None of that has happened. None of that was ever going to happen. It bears worth noting that I think the Israelis were also completely wrong when they assessed in October of 2023 that there was no immediate threat from Hamas to Israeli territory.

Our own Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seems to have had nothing of consequence to say in response to the Israeli prediction of a quick victory. Maybe the CIA agreed with the overly optimistic assessment. More likely, our collection from inside Iran is so bad that the Agency simply had nothing to add to the discussion. We apparently went to war because Netanyahu told us it would be a cake walk.

In short, we are now at war, and we know conclusively that our collective assessment of what exactly is happening inside Iran is woefully inadequate. We may be able to pinpoint targets from the air and intercept all sorts of communications, but we need to accept that we have at best a really murky idea of what the Iranians intend and what they will do next. We are feeling our way forward in a very dimly lit, very dangerous room.

How then are we going to determine where this “stockpile” of enriched uranium is? Is it all in one place? Is it in multiple locations? Is it buried under rubble? What defenses are in place to protect it? Is the entire facility where it is stored rigged to blow when and if it is attacked? Are we even sure at this point that this uranium exists?

The British 1st Airborne was dropped 64 miles in the German rear based on intelligence assessments that said there were no German troops of consequence near Arnhem, and XXX Corps would be able to race up a two-lane highway against light opposition. The 1st Airborne landed on top of two German Panzer divisions, and those “demoralized” German troops opposing XXX Corps turned out to be focused on something other than surrendering.

The intelligence was wrong. A lot of good men died needlessly because of that. Right now, at this stage in this conflict, what we can say conclusively is that our intelligence has been wrong as well.

Here’s the God’s honest truth. We don’t know exactly where this uranium is. We don’t know how it is being protected. We have no idea what our guys are going to find on the ground when and if someone is mad enough to drop them into a giant kill box because talk show hosts who have never heard a shot fired in anger say we should.

A Marine combat vet I know told me a story once. It was regarding his first deployment into Helmand during Obama‘s infamous surge. The Marine was part of a force sent to assault a building at which it was believed the Taliban had stored all sorts of munitions. Those munitions were reported to be guarded by an undetermined number of fighters. As the Marine was on overwatch with his machine gun, observing the target, he thought about the intelligence they had been provided.

They were told that there were 0 to 100 insurgents at the location. The Marine calculated the length and width of the building in question and concluded that if it were empty, there would be zero insurgents inside, and if it were filled wall to wall with Taliban standing shoulder to shoulder, it might hold 100 individuals. In other words, as he watched the target, he concluded that no one actually had any intelligence about what the Marines could expect inside. Somebody had looked at a picture, done some quick math, and was now trying to pretend like they actually knew something.

Fortunately, in this case, when the Marines assaulted, they found the building was empty, there were no Taliban, and nobody had booby-trapped the structure. It was a waste of time, but at least it wasn’t a waste of life. It could have been a lot worse.

When it comes to Iranian plans and intentions, we are flying blind in Iran. Everything we believed we knew before we started this war has proven wrong. We need to figure out why that is and fix it very quickly. In the meantime, let’s not make a difficult situation infinitely worse by sending good men to their deaths. We don’t need another Market Garden.

Originally published by AND Magazine